"We tried not to let the kids see but I was terrified," Erin Gwilliam said.

“It was kind of like scary and I just wanted to go home,” Erin’s daughter Elin said.

The Gwilliams rented a house along the river. The rain flooded the river past its banks and washed out a nearby bridge and surrounding roads. That left the Gwilliams with only one way out of the North Shore.